Meet Up #25

📆 Thursday, September 10, 2026 ⏰ 13:00 – 14:00 (Paris time)

INNOVATING FOR CULTURAL AND TOURISM EXPERIENCES

Museum Connections virtual meetings for professionals working in museums, cultural venues, and tourism sites.

Meet Up by Museum ConnectionsThe virtual meetings for professionals working in museums, cultural venues, and tourism sites!

A short-format session that connects you directly with those who are rethinking and shaping the cultural and tourism experiences of tomorrow.

Each Meet Up opens with a presentation of concrete projects led by museums, cultural venues, or tourism sites engaged in innovation for visitor experience. You will discover real initiatives, design choices, and field experiments — valuable sources of inspiration to nourish your own thinking.

It continues with a discussion session between speakers and participants, where you can challenge ideas, share experiences, and ask questions directly to the speakers.

In just one hour, you leave with new ideas, concrete insights, and above all the feeling of having been in direct contact with those driving change in the sector.

This webinar is intended for professionals working in museums, cultural venues, and tourism sites. Participation from other professional backgrounds may be accepted upon approval by the organizer.

Next Meet Up Thursday, September 10, 2026

⚠️This session will be delivered exclusively in English.

Meet Up #25 Cultural Entrepreneurship: How can organisations pursue revenue generation without compromising their core mission?

Cultural organisations are expected to do more than ever before. They preserve heritage, inspire creativity, support communities and welcome increasingly diverse audiences. At the same time, they are operating in a context of growing financial pressure, changing visitor expectations and evolving business models. As public funding becomes less predictable, many organisations are rethinking how they generate income while staying true to the purpose that defines them.

Entrepreneurship is becoming part of this conversation. Not because cultural organisations want to become commercial businesses, but because they need new ways of creating long-term value. This may involve developing new revenue streams, making better use of existing assets and expertise, or building stronger commercial skills across the organisation. The challenge is not simply to generate more income, but to strengthen financial resilience without compromising cultural and social impact.

Through experiences from across Europe, this Meet Up explores three different approaches to cultural entrepreneurship. Together, they illustrate how organisations of different sizes, governance models and missions are rethinking growth, business development and leadership while keeping culture at the centre of every decision.

The National Galleries Scotland is one of the United Kingdom's leading visual arts organisations, bringing together three galleries in Edinburgh and caring for the country's national collection of Scottish and international art. Alongside preserving, researching and sharing its collections, the organisation combines public funding with income generated through its own commercial activities to support its public mission.

Its experience demonstrates how a national cultural institution can strengthen financial sustainability by creating greater value from the assets, knowledge and activities it already has. Rather than starting with new ideas, it shows how commercial thinking can help organisations identify where the greatest opportunities already exist.

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The Albany is a multi-disciplinary arts centre and registered charity based in South East London. Combining artistic programming, community engagement and creative workspaces, it supports artists, local communities and cultural organisations through a wide range of cultural, social and educational activities. Its business model combines public funding, earned income and charitable support.

Its experience shows how a community arts organisation can strengthen its business model by expanding the role of its existing spaces, services and community assets. By adapting what already exists to meet new needs, business development has become a way to reinforce, rather than replace, its cultural and social mission.

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Pophouse is a Stockholm-based entertainment company that invests in and develops cultural brands through museums, live experiences and immersive productions. Working closely with artists and their estates, it creates new ways for audiences to engage with music heritage through projects such as ABBA The Museum and Avicii Experience. By combining creative development, technology and commercial expertise, Pophouse develops cultural experiences that go beyond the traditional museum model.

Its experience offers a distinctive perspective on how entrepreneurial thinking can help cultural organisations grow while remaining true to the artists and stories they represent. Through new formats, partnerships and visitor experiences, Pophouse demonstrates how business innovation can support both long-term sustainability and cultural impact.

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Engaged expert perspectives at the heart of sector transformation

Each Meet Up features professionals who design, test, and implement new approaches within museums, cultural venues, and tourism sites. Their presentations are based on concrete projects and real-world experience, offering direct insight into the sector’s current challenges. Beyond sharing expertise, these speakers create a space for dialogue to compare practices, question approaches, and broaden everyone’s perspectives.